Stan says he has no idea about this one from the latest New Yorker:

Hey, don’t you like how the tabletop-speakerphone shape is echoed by the trees out the window?
Stan says he has no idea about this one from the latest New Yorker:

Hey, don’t you like how the tabletop-speakerphone shape is echoed by the trees out the window?
This entry was originally posted on 2020-Nov-13. We were reminded of it when reading Tom Falco’s newsletter today (corresponding to this post on his Tomversation blog), which reprints this panel along with pictures and commentary on his recent New York visit.

Tomversation sent in by Ollie. As a CIDU? Didn’t say! Is the joke like those set at modern art galleries, where a frame surrounds a stain on the wall, here turned into a window mistaken for an art object? Or is it just a fond reminder that one can tire of any quality of indoor view and welcome a glance out a window? [2022 comment: Falco’s title “The grass is always greener” would seem to fit better with that latter view.]
Next mystery: Is it meant to be somewhat realistic? So these would be a collection of posters on paper, mounted on somebody’s wall? No? An actual touring exhibition of masterpieces unlikely to be loaned out and then exhibited together? Nah.
Does it remind you of one of those paintings that show other paintings, maybe in a gallery setting? Like this one by Samuel F. B. Morse:

[2022 comment: The Picasso has been identified by commenter Olivier: “BTW, the Picasso is ‘portrait de femme au béret orange et col de fourrure (Marie-Thérèse)’, 1937.”]
And now, for something not quite completely different! Still in the realm of fine arts and popular suspicion, this OY from Cornered, sent by Olivier.

Wrong Hands can be cynical without being mean:

Oh, how those New Yorkers love themselves some art:

And The Far Side on “The Art of Conversation”. Sorry, just a link, not a copy.
https://www.thefarside.com/2020/10/30/2
And just be hush-hush about this, okay? —

A CIDU from Ken Berkun, who saw this at The New Yorker. Can we identify the ways Harry Bliss cartoons for the magazine differently from how he cartoons for his newsletter and GoComics and associated outlets?


After inserting this one here, I later found it discussed on Arnold Zwicky’s Blog, in his usual exemplary detail and scholarship.




Oh, he got us! It turned out not to be an oy about “Youth In Asia”!

Here’s an Ewww-Oy for sure:

From Lola in PA, who says “Not a clue.” (And also “This comic sucks” which may just be a reflection of its Hoovering content.)

An acknowledgement of using the same joke, about four years later, when the similarity was pointed out. From “Monster Picnic” in June 2021 (hat tip to Why Evolution Is True blog in 2022 where I saw it):

And by David Borchard in The New Yorker in 2016:

No, we’re not going to call this a synchronicity — there’s nothing surprising about seeing two Thanksgiving cartoons on Thanksgiving. But seeing both taking on the idea of special diets and restrictions is a nice pairing.

(I’m tagging The New Yorker though not sure that’s where the Roz Chast appeared.)

She didn’t save a place for the dog!
My first time reading the word “defenestration” was in the title of a story by Arthur C. Clarke, “The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch”, appearing in the collection Tales from the White Hart. Subsequently, I learned the general uses of this funny word, and in particular in the nickname for some historical events, “The defenestration of Prague”.
My first encounter with the word “quantum” in other than a physics sense was in the title of a story by Ian Fleming, “Quantum of Solace”, appearing in the collection For Your Eyes Only. Subsequently, I rarely encounter any use other than something scientific.
My first exposure to the word “squalor” was in the title of a story by J D Salinger, “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor”, appearing in the collection Nine Stories. Subsequently, my foremost exemplar for the concept of “living in squalor” are the cartoons of George Booth.
This one was sent in by Stan, who says “Here’s one I didn’t get…or maybe it’s an, ‘Is that all there is? But what’s the joke?’ kind of thing. Anyway, I’m guessing she made scrambled eggs for dinner. What’s the joke exactly? Also, what is the cat doing? Is that part of it?”

Thanks to larK who sent this in from the 30 August issue of The New Yorker, and can’t see the sense in the sorting of blames and reasonings in the caption.

